Past Lives

What follows is a deeper dive into the background, history and story of the Founder- Stephen Meade.

Past Life

With Cenoplex, the benefit for consumers is they can receive relevant messages that either the Operator would like them to hear, or ones the subscriber may choose to hear.

We will be the first company in the world to insert a message in that gap. Additionally, that small amount of time, taken in concert with the total numbers of calls made per day world-wide, makes this new found gap- potentially one of the largest untapped resources. There are 4.6 Billion people with a handset (Facebook only has 500MM subscribers), and over 25 billion calls made per day (which is more calls than Google converts in ads per month, and the 4-6 seconds equates to over 500 Million hours of inventory per day.

That could get exciting, so wish us luck.

Regarding what I’ve done in the past. A little history could be helpful.

Where to start? A quick little history may provide some insight. Though, I often joke that one day when the book is written on my life- it may oft be called The Calamity.

Being in the right place and the right time, can often be undermined by forces beyond our own control.

My life can be defined at times by such a series of events.

I started out doing watch retail stores in college (age 18). Authored 3 Books- How to Improve Your Credit, How to Apply for Credit, and How to Budget and Finance you Money (age 20). Infomercial- Give Yourself Credit. 1st Calamity- People with bad credit, don’t have credit cards to pay. Ooops! Set about to get a 900 number. 2nd Calamity- Two days before the approval of our 900 Number, the FCC changed to regulations to where you couldn’t charge product- only time. Hello Ms. Cleo’s of the World- good by Executive Financial Group.

Next I started in Financial Services and became a Vice-President in Travelers Group. Glorified title, but what I actually did was recruit, hire and train people to work for me. Doing what? Oh yea, selling life insurance on full commission…and night! Want to get good at selling? Try not only selling insurance, but convincing (or for that matter, tricking, convincing, or psychologically manipulating) them into actually selling.

That lasted up until the point where I had the unique opportunity to put a term life insurance policy on 4 Major League Baseball teams to cover the entire payroll. Welcome 1.2 Billion in Premiums ( I think that would have made me personally at age 26 the 6th largest insurance company. Instead- welcome 3rd Calamity. Travelers was not big enough to write the coverage, and I was under captive agreements to not go anywhere else.

Next!

This was circa 1996 and I heard of this thing called the “internet”. I decided to write another book (networking and meeting people), and have it sold through the web. I wanted someone to do three simple things.

1- Build a web site

2- Process my orders

3- Send me a check and mailing labels.

Seemed like a simple idea. 1996- Didn’t exist. So, I started an Internet company called VirtualSellers. We became the first company (I believe) with 7 payment options online. We were the master merchant for hundreds of companies (even had Visa rewrite the laws about processing- which subsequently opened the door for PayPal many years later). We sold the company in March of 1999. That company went from a 30MM market cap to about 980MM, in a span of 7 months. Calamity 4; We sold in 1999, the tech collapse was March of 2000 (right when my restriction had finally cleared and the markets were in free-fall.) Calamity 5. Sold to the wrong group, who believed our secret sauce was the shopping cart software we developed. Our sauce were the deals with Nascar, Sprint, and Ebay that I had on the table to be closed. Calamity 6- VirtualSellers moved out of transaction processing and opened the door for the creation of PayPal.

So, took the proceeds I was able to get out from selling my stock, and reinvested into my next big idea. The creation of a trade platform called 2xchange- which would be a global currency to the world in international and corporate trade. Calamity 7- the investment markets changed and no one would touch “exchanges”.

Repurposed the software to something called RONAStar (same engine different use), and put together a partnership (after 18 months), with a consulting firm to roll out, service and support. Good news- our average software sales license was $1MM per year, and the consulting firms target sales the first year- 300 sales. We were set for a windfall!

Instead, Calamity 8- and true windfall- September 11th happened. Calamity 9- the consulting firm we had carefully selected, was the venerable Arthur Anderson. Those of you old enough to remember- Anderson went bankrupt as the lead auditor on Enron.

Ouch! That one was hard to recover from.

By default, after September 11th, I took the software we had created and changed a single navigation button to create a new product. What was born was EAMS- the Emergency Asset Management System. We ended up donating the software to the city of NY and handled the crush of physical donations that were showing up after the disaster.

Where did that take me? Down the path of the newly created HLS, or Department of Homeland Security. I spent 3 years selling into the Government, and let me say it is not an experience I hope to ever recreate. Calamity 10- EAMS was a subcontractor and several projects and as a company we never got paid.

Hmmmm.. Catching up now-

2005. What to do? I had the software company, which I could attempt to resurrect, or a little idea for this mobile company.

Me, I chose Mobile.

That lead to the creation of what was initially AdSnips, and is now called Cenoplex. That company has been a long time in development and is poised to go into trials this year.

So far, no calamity on that one, or the current My WetRock project.

But hey, the jury is still out.
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Isolation is a Good Thing
This is an invitation only networking event that I hold once a month in Los Angeles.

Additionally, whenever I’m in another city, I will often hold one as well.

The event is designed to bring together high level executives from different industries. It’s in cocktail’s only, so no speakers, no topics, no tables or dinners. Just an open opportunity to mingle with peer level executives.

The origins of the Isolation is a Good Thing Happy Hours came from an idea I created in 2000 called KnockNow.

There is a great story behind the creation of KnockNow and you can find more information here.